


ashes on the ground

by luxluminaire



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Finale (in part)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-02 23:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13328619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxluminaire/pseuds/luxluminaire
Summary: One night, Jacobi and Kepler watched fireworks together to celebrate the anniversary of the day they met. Five years later, Jacobi returns to that spot and wrestles with the complication emotions that have plagued him after everything that happened on the Hephaestus.(A study of the "before" and "after" of Jacobi and Kepler's relationship, in two parts.)





	ashes on the ground

**i. 2012**

Jacobi still isn’t sure whether it is pure coincidence that he met Warren Kepler on the anniversary of one of the worst days of his life. He certainly believes it to be coincidence at first, a mere twist of fate that his traditional act of drowning his sorrows was hijacked by a man buying him an expensive drink and leaving his business card behind in what led to the opportunity of a lifetime. After a year of seeing how Kepler operates and discovering just how far the man thinks ahead, Jacobi realizes that maybe their meeting on that particular day was specifically orchestrated, as if Kepler somehow _knew_ that their meeting would be the best thing that ever happened to him.

But Kepler is inscrutable even on the best of days, especially on this particular day exactly a year later when he has strung Jacobi along with a fake stakeout and the pretense of forgetting the day’s significance only to turn everything around with a duffel bag of fireworks ( _fifty pounds_ of them, because of course Kepler never half-asses anything). It’s the first time Jacobi has seen anything resembling mischief in his superior’s eyes when he proposes that they set them off. Jacobi hates that look just a little bit, because it doesn’t seem _right_ for Kepler to fool him into making him think he’d forgotten the anniversary of their meeting. But he’s not complaining--of _course_ he’s not complaining. What matters is that he now possesses what his professional opinion would call “a metric shit-ton” of fireworks, and he has someone to sit under the stars with and watch them burst in a beautiful conflagration of light and sound.

Jacobi finishes setting up the display and lights the fuse before returning to where Kepler waits at the car. Kepler cuts an impressive figure in the moonlight as he sits on the car’s hood, one leg bent at the knee while the other hangs over the front bumper. He drinks from the flask that he has brought with him, and when Jacobi climbs up to join him on the hood Kepler offers the flask to him in a silent gesture.

“What, no dramatic speech about how this scotch represents how much you’ve come to trust and rely on me over the past year?” Jacobi asks. He takes the flask and tips its contents into his mouth, savoring the rich taste of the alcohol contained within it. “I feel like I don’t know you at all.”

“I believe the gesture speaks plainly enough for itself,” Kepler replies. “Unless you’d _like_ to hear a dramatic speech?”

Jacobi hands the flask back to him. “Nah, I think I’ll pass on that one.”

As odd as it is for Kepler’s actions to speak louder than words, especially considering how much he loves to hear himself talk, there’s something comforting in this quiet moment between them. Jacobi watches Kepler out of the corner of his eye, lost in the sight of his commanding officer in a rare state of being at ease. During moments like these it almost feels like he and Kepler are ordinary people, a couple of--well, whatever they are outside of their roles as SI-5 operatives--taking the time to celebrate an important day. But ordinary people do not mark the simple occasion of “the day I met you” with fifty pounds of fireworks set off in a vacant lot, and so as the first firework shoots up into the sky, the vision of normalcy burns away.

“Hell of a sight, isn’t it, Mr. Jacobi?” Kepler says as red and gold sparks blossom across the sky.

“Yeah,” Jacobi replies. “It sure is.”

He shifts his hand across the hood of the car, brushing his fingers against Kepler’s hand in a motion brief enough to seem accidental. When Kepler does not move away from his tentative advances, he takes a chance and keeps his hand there, his thumb stroking across the ridges of Kepler’s knuckles as if he hopes to memorize the map of them under his touch. Kepler raises his flask to his lips with his free hand and takes another drink, letting out a breath of satisfaction that is barely audible over the whizz and crackle of the fireworks overhead.

“Jacobi,” says Kepler, breaking the silence that has fallen between them. He gives one of his excruciating pauses that makes Jacobi wonder if something important lies after the statement of his name. All of the possible outcomes hang in the air with unspoken potential before Kepler speaks again. “Did I ever tell you about the time I went undercover at a New Year’s Eve party in Singapore?”

Jacobi sighs. “No, sir,” he says, following along with the standard script that accompanies the start of one of Kepler’s stories. A vague sense of disappointment passes through him, even he is not entirely sure what he was expecting to hear. “I don’t think you have.”

“Mm. It’s a good one.” Kepler offers the flask to Jacobi again. Jacobi drinks, careful not to break the contact of their hands so that the magic of the moment between them does not dissolve. “I was on the top floor of a high-rise in Marina Bay,” Kepler continues on, “being offered some very expensive champagne by the president of a rival tech company. My identity was perfectly safe, of course, but I couldn’t be sure that the drink that he was offering was equally as safe. So...”

His words fade away from Jacobi’s focus, because he has heard enough of Kepler’s stories that they all sound the same to him now: tall tales that contain just enough weirdly specific details to place them in the category of “you can’t make this shit up.” Jacobi knows where to make murmurs of interest and where to prompt him with “And then what happened, sir?”, even if he couldn’t care less where the story goes. Instead, he watches the continued blooms of color that light up the sky. Despite having worked with various explosives for most of his adult life, he still marvels at the science of it all, how various chemicals react to each other to create something beautiful. It’s a strange contrast to the _other_ explosions that happened on this day three years ago, when Jacobi proved that he was just a little _too_ good at breaking things by leaving nothing but death and destroyed lives in his wake.

“Long story short,” Kepler concludes, “that’s how I disposed of a target using nothing but a cigarette lighter, a bottle rocket, and a couple of rubber bands.”

“That sounds, uh, very riveting, sir,” Jacobi says.

He tries to find a meaning in the bits and pieces that he has heard of the story, but there’s nothing but the tenuous connection of the bottle rocket and the currently exploding fireworks above them that ties the tale to the present moment. Maybe there was a point hidden away in there somewhere, because Kepler does not waste his time with anything that does not hold any meaning, but for now it has been lost to Jacobi’s inattention.

“I had a feeling you’d like that one,” replies Kepler.

He has not yet moved his hand away from where it rests under Jacobi’s touch. His skin is warm under Jacobi’s fingertips, which strikes him as odd. Kepler is not a warm person, after all--at least not in temperament, where outside of his rare moments of generosity and something resembling kindness he is coldly pragmatic, never hesitating to crack a few metaphorical eggs for the sake of his big-picture omelette. _I like the feel of it in my hand, Mr. Jacobi_ , Kepler had said to him with a glass of finely-aged scotch in his grip as he delivered what Jacobi privately calls “the whiskey speech,” an illustration about how easily he is willing to part with his attachments for the sake of his work. Does he like the feel of Jacobi’s hand in his, regarding him with a vague sense of fondness even though--but no, Jacobi doesn’t like where _that_ thought goes, and so he stops it in its tracks.

“Major,” he says instead, “when you came across me in that bar, did you know that you’d be turning the anniversary of one of the worst days in my life into one of the best?”

Kepler turns his full attention toward him. The space around the two of them is dark under the cover of night, but the flashing light of the fireworks illuminates the sharp blue gaze of his eyes. “Did I… _know_?” he repeats, leaving an agonizing pause between the words “I” and “know” as if he thinks Jacobi is some kind of idiot.

“You said that you already knew everything about me by the time we met,” Jacobi says. “You must have known that it had been two years since the accident before I told you about it. So did you choose that day on purpose, or what?”

“There was a certain… _appropriateness_ that came with making contact with you on that particular day, sure,” replies Kepler. He speaks his words carefully, letting their weight sink in as if he refuses to let any part of his statement go to waste. “But I’d say that you calling this the anniversary of the best day of your life is a personal observation that I couldn’t have predicted.”

_And let me guess, it doesn’t count as the best day of_ your _life_ , Jacobi wants to say, but the response does not come. The lengths to which Kepler has gone to surprise him indicate that the day has to mean _something_ to him, unless he is more selfless than expected and has set up this entire thing solely for Jacobi’s benefit. Either way, a faint sense of gratitude blooms inside Jacobi at the prospect of Kepler choosing to mark the occasion with him.

“Well, you knew what you were doing, that’s for sure,” he says. “And to think at first I just assumed you were hitting on me when you started talking to me.”

Kepler chuckles in a low, rich sound. “Huh. Is that so.” He phrases it like a statement, not a question, as if he is making a mere observation. He returns his attention to the fireworks that continue to shoot into the sky--fifty pounds is a _lot_ of firepower, after all, and Jacobi has set them up so that they will not all go off in one rapid salvo that is over in a minute or two. “Truly a beautiful sight,” he murmurs.

“The fireworks, or me?” Jacobi asks. The continued contact of their hands gives him the confidence that he can offer a teasing remark without fear of reprisal or dismissal.

Kepler does not respond. Instead, he slides his flask into one of his pockets and reaches with his free hand to touch Jacobi’s cheek in a surprisingly tender motion. Kepler being _gentle_ with him seems ridiculous in every prior context, when their partnership is mostly rough edges and broken glass, but now it feels like Kepler’s hand belongs here, his thumb brushing along Jacobi’s stubbled jawline before he leans in to kiss him. Jacobi responds eagerly, and when Kepler deepens the kiss he yields to him, tasting the whiskey on his lips and tongue. He wraps an arm around Kepler to pull their bodies closer together, and right now his only thought is that he is the luckiest man in the world.

When they eventually break apart, so much remains unspoken between them as Kepler’s touch lingers against Jacobi’s skin. They don’t talk about what exists between them, a devotion that goes beyond physical intimacies and instead manifests itself into the expectation that Jacobi will not hesitate to give his life for his superior officer if necessary. In this moment, however, a burst of clarity enters Jacobi’s mind, leaving in its wake the inescapable thought of _I love him_. It’s a thought that he has idly entertained on prior occasions, but it has never felt as real to him as it does right now while he sits on the hood of the car with Kepler under the light of the moon and the fireworks. The prospect _should_ terrify him, especially because of the complications that it introduces into their working relationship. Instead, Jacobi feels nothing but the quiet, calm realization of _Oh, so_ that’s _what this is_ as his senses flood with the full extent of his emotions.

“You never answered my question, you know,” he says.

“It was an unnecessary question,” replies Kepler. “And you should know what the SI-5 handbook says about unnecessary questions.”

At Jacobi’s groan, Kepler gives a brief laugh. He takes out his flask again and savors a long drink. The profile of his face in the light distracts Jacobi from his irritation at the damn SI-5 handbook. The only rule that Jacobi needs to know is that he and Kepler will always have each other’s deepest trust throughout whatever missions Goddard Futuristics throws at them.

“But for the record,” Kepler says, “I _am_ glad that I met you, Jacobi.”

“Yeah.” Jacobi exhales a breath. “Me too, Major.”

The lights and sounds of the fireworks continue overhead, and as he leans against Kepler in a continued rare expression of their affections, Jacobi is the happiest that he has ever been in his life.

 

**ii. 2017**

Jacobi should have expected that coming back to Earth after everything that happened on the Hephaestus would be nothing less than a smoldering dumpster fire. Goddard Futuristics is in ruins after the decimation of its primary leadership, and without the anchors of Kepler and Maxwell to keep him tethered, Jacobi has been set adrift. His new friends from the Hephaestus are good enough, he supposes, and it’s always fun to share his insider secrets with Lovelace to aid her mission to destroy what remains of Goddard. None of that, however, eases the gaping hole left in his chest that reminds him of what he has lost as he tries to rise from the ashes of his former life like a fucked-up phoenix.

The months pass, and when a certain anniversary approaches Jacobi’s first instinct is to drown himself in alcohol at a cheap bar to bring everything full-circle. He knows better than to start down that path of self-destruction, though, and hiding from the feelings that he needs to confront will not do him much good. He therefore takes a car and spends a couple of days on the open road, driving through the night with the dark sky and its blanket of stars as his only company on the way to his destination. It’s funny how simple endeavors have a way of dredging up ghosts of the past, and as Jacobi makes his way down a stretch of highway he’s suddenly back in the passenger seat of one of the many rental cars used during SI-5 missions, dozing in and out of slumber as Maxwell goes toe-to-toe with Kepler in their latest round of Questions Only. The image is so clear to him: his feet on the dashboard and his head resting against the window, Maxwell leaning forward eagerly in her seat with the seatbelt straining, one of Kepler’s hands firmly gripping the steering wheel while the other adjusts the radio. The details feel like they should accompany a specific memory, but Jacobi cannot place them to a particular mission. The location and task at hand are not what matter in the hindsight of his memories, but rather the wonderful company that he spent them with--the company that is now gone, dead but not buried because the only remnants of Warren Kepler and Alana Maxwell that have made it back to Earth are the fragments that exist in Jacobi’s mind.

Locating the place where he and Kepler had celebrated the anniversary of their meeting five years ago takes some effort, but after some digging in the SI-5 files that Jacobi has in his possession it doesn’t take long to find the name of the shitty town to which Kepler had brought him for the fake stakeout. The vacant lot where they’d watched the fireworks stands mostly unchanged, and there’s something inherently unfair in that observation as Jacobi parks the car and rummages in the back seat for the collection of fireworks and bottle of whiskey that he has brought with him. He can try as hard as he can to recreate what has come before, but none of it makes up for how Jacobi is now alone in celebrating an occasion that is meant for two people.

His hands tremble as he sets up the fireworks. He has never before had his hands this unsteady around explosives, where he usually works with a surgeon’s precision no matter how dangerous his materials are. He has worked with explosives so reactive that they could blow him to smithereens if he makes one wrong move, and yet it is now something as mundane as some cheap consumer-grade fireworks that have given him a bad case of shaky hands. Yet another thing about the situation that is unfair, Jacobi muses as he pushes back the frustration that overwhelms him.

_Are you good to do this?_ asks an imaginary voice that sounds suspiciously like Maxwell’s when he takes out his lighter to light the fuse.

Jacobi fumbles with the switch on the lighter, taking three tries before he produces a flame. _Yeah, sure,_ he tells Maxwell’s ghost in his head. _I’ve never been better._ It doesn’t matter that she always knew when he was lying. She is no longer here to frown at him until he admits what is troubling him, and so he ignites the fuse and walks back to the car with a heavy weight sitting on his chest.

He climbs up to sit on the hood of the car. As the first of the fireworks shoot up into the sky, he takes a drink straight from his bottle of whiskey. It has been a long time since he has felt the burn of whiskey in his throat, not since--God, he can’t even _remember_ the exact circumstances of the last time he’d shared a glass with Kepler. It had been on the Urania, with its effects diminished by having to drink it through a straw, but the finer details elude him. He had never expected it to be the last time back then, and so now he is left with nothing but faint memories to accompany the taste.

_Hell of a sight, isn’t it, Daniel?_ comes the sound of Kepler’s voice in his head, and of course he calls him Daniel, the name that he’d left him with before walking away from him in a final farewell. Jacobi turns and almost expects to see Kepler sitting next to him, looking up at the fireworks with the hint of a smile teasing across his lips. The space beside him is empty, however, with no hand to take in his and no body to lean against. Instead there is only the ghost of what once existed and the reminder that he can never go back to those happier days of years past.

But despite the absent form next to him, Jacobi feels the inexplicable need to say something, to hear the sound of his own voice as he talks through everything that he _should_ have addressed months ago. It’s what Kepler would have done, turning each of his experiences into one of his long-winded stories, and… Well, _there’s_ an idea. Jacobi isn’t sure whether it’s a _good_ idea, but he has certainly had worse.

“Hey, Colonel,” he says, breaking past the barrier that tells him that this is stupid and there’s no reason to say anything aloud when no one is here to listen. “Did I ever tell you about the time that I helped save everyone’s asses and got them back home to Earth?” He pauses to imagine Kepler’s raised eyebrows at how he has turned the usual script on its head. “My superior officer, he was a real dickbag who walked away from me when he should’ve stayed, and so I thought hey, what’s left for me to lose, right? So I got the shit beaten out of me by Cutter’s newest attack dog, managed to take out him and the station’s engines without getting myself blown up because I’m just that amazing, and then…”

He continues onward, letting his words spill out unguarded until he eventually falters, stumbling over the part where Hera had shown him the footage that had revealed to him Kepler’s ultimate fate--how he had sabotaged Pryce and Cutter’s plans and killed Young, and how he had to be so fucking _dramatic_ in the face of being vented into space by downing the scotch that he’d been carrying with him the whole time. It’s far from the first time that Jacobi has said out loud that Kepler is gone, but this statement of the truth is different. This is him confronting that reality head-on, acknowledging the vacancy beside him in all of its splendor as he speaks to an imagined ghost with the words that he has spent months wishing he could tell him.

The bursts of light and color in the sky blur with the hot sting of the tears that flood his eyes. He has not cried since the quiet, snuffling tears that he’d shed over Maxwell while locked up in the Hephaestus’s observation deck, his face turned away from Kepler so that he does not see his grief. Mourning Kepler is not as straightforward as mourning Maxwell, anyway. Maxwell had been a friend, his _best_ friend, and his partner in crime for the better part of three years, whereas Kepler had been… _complicated_. He was the man who Jacobi loved and then hated, the man whom he’d die for and then tried to kill. He was a series of contradictions that only grew more complex as time moved forward, and now Jacobi weeps for him, tears rolling down his cheeks as his words break off into sobs. The weight that he carries in his chest eases a little, but the sense of relief feels hollow with the profound absence of Kepler’s company next to him.

“Long story short…” Jacobi trails off, wiping his nose with his hand and feeling the crooked ridge of once-broken bone and cartilage that had not quite healed properly after the beating that Riemann had given him. “Long story short,” he begins again, even though he cannot reduce this story to a pithy summation. “Fuck you, Kepler.” And then, added in a quieter confession: “I really did love you once, you know.”

Predictably, he receives no reply. The only sound is the bursting of the fireworks overhead, their beauty mocking his inner turmoil. He takes another swig from his bottle of whiskey before contemplating its remaining contents. With the measured arc of a perfect throw, he tosses the bottle away. It smashes onto the ground in sync with the burst of one of the fireworks, glass shattering and liquid spilling out as sparks crackle and fall. A surge of adrenaline passes through him, stronger than any buzz that alcohol can give him. Breaking things may be all that he has ever been good for, but damn, does it feel satisfying.

_That was a waste of good whiskey, you know,_ Kepler would have said to him. Jacobi ignores the words that could have been, discarding them as something that he no longer needs. The embers of his relationship with Kepler have been left to smolder for far too long, and now it is time for Jacobi to let everything become ashes that will give way to something new, something that is not mired in the complications of devotion and betrayal.

He rubs his hand across his eyes to clear his vision. The fireworks bloom with a new sense of clarity, and so Jacobi stretches his body out long to lie across the hood of the car to watch the rest of the show that he has set up.

“You were right, sir,” he says in a final statement to the Kepler who is no longer beside him. “It truly is a beautiful sight.”

He watches the fireworks until nothing remains but silence and smoky air. Although he still carries the weight of the dead with him, he feels lighter when he places his feet on solid ground. He takes a final look at his surroundings and the memories and emotions that they hold, and then he gets into the car and drives into the night, the headlights illuminating the way as he leaves everything behind him.


End file.
